Istanbul Continued...

Our subsequent days in Istanbul have been very full with lots of walking around the city. We have been very impressed with how well Kai and Pippin have done with the long days hitting the streets. Of course, Istanbul does have lots to look at and to keep us all entertained. Having Ian along is also a fabulous distraction for us all after months of travelling just as a family unit. We have also been doing a lot of great visiting throughout the day and in the evenings. Ian has been reading Anne Frank's Diary to us all whenever we have had down times and that has also been a great collective experience (especially after visiting the museum in Amsterdam not too long ago.) Ian is very dramatic (as many of you know) and so the kids enjoy his theatrical readings.
Of course we have spent some good stints of time in the Grand Bazaar, for which Istanbul has been famous over the last many centuries. Here is a picture of Ian taking us to his favourite carpet dealer and all of us going through the long detailed process of watching him buying a traditional Kalim. He absolutely loves the shopping experience, and it has been fun teasing him about his addiction. Istanbul is very much like South East Asia, in that one could go a little shopping crazy. I (Ronato) feel quite cured of that after all our time in other Asian markets. (Note from Skye: I, on the otherhand, could continue to go a little crazy, but have been extremely restrained -- I am aware of our budget and kind of had my day in Asia!)
A picture of the old ceiling throughout the Grand Bazaar. It is a truly stunning old structure -- so much of Istanbul is just so incredibly old. We have all said that we could easily spend much more time here exploring all the age of the city and the country at large. It is, in fact, an enormous country, and hopefully we can return sometime in the future to see more of it.

Here is one of our many pictures showing all the shopping fun we are having with Ian. He seems to have a particular fetish for bathroom accessories . . . soaps, plush towels, nice smelling things, etc . . . Luckily Skye, Kai and Pippin are happy to oblige the long drawn out shopping experiences with him. I often just land up outside on the side walk taking photographs and watching people. (Another note from Skye: please note the teasing tone here, Ronato is truly in his element here -- not only does he have amazingly old and beautiful subject matter for his photos, he also has endless hours for his teasing and banter with Ian, who is always a willing player.)
If I were just a little braver, I could take lots of interesting pictures of people here but I tend not to want to be invasive, so I often have to wait until they have walked past before taking a picture.
Istanbul is a lovely blend of the more traditional Muslim culture and a very European experience. There seems to be a thriving art scene here which one can take in by looking at art galleries, listening to music, Turkish cinema, street acts or the many different traditional museums. This is some graffiti we stumbled upon which we all thought was very visually pleasing.
This street act was fabulous! It seemed to be some kind of traditional Turkish fusion with a very interesting tabla-style drummer. As always the people watching is great everywhere.
We will leave you with this wonderful picture of a Roman aqua duct that runs right through the city. It was built to transport water to the palace and other bigger buildings way back when, somthing like 2000 years ago. All this age is such a treat coming from Victoria.
Next we are going to do a quick food blog just because there is so much food to be seen in Istanbul.

Until our next post . . .

Ronato, Skye, Kai & Pippin